Take a Break, Do Nothing

This evening after a pleasant dinner on my day off from work, I decided to simply go out and sit on the front porch for a while, just relaxing and being quiet.  No agenda, no goals.  It’s a pleasure in life that I have enjoyed since back in the mid 1960’s as a kid just sitting on the back porch.  Truth be told, though, I have gone through periods when I was so caught up in the routines of my life that I wouldn’t make time for this important non-activity.

Learn to be still…that’s an old Eagles song, didn’t Don Henley write it?  It seems to run counter to the narrative that dominates our culture, though.  We’re supposed to always be busy, aren’t we, justifying our existence by the important, “relevant” things we do?  But I like to take a page from the Hebrew Scriptures, from the book of Ecclesiastes: it is all a chasing after the wind…

I like breaks, and not just so that I can fill the acquired free time with purposeful activities.  There is something to be said for just quietly sitting there and emptying yourself of all your concerns, at least for a little while…